This week, OpenTable celebrated the 100 Best Al Fresco Restaurants in America and the 100 Best Restaurants for Outdoor Dining in Canada. Offering diners the option to eat outside is great for business, but it’s not always sunshine and rainbows. There are numerous challenges of operating a weather-dependent space when it rains — for or a week or even a day — or if it’s brutally hot outside. Restaurateurs with al fresco areas check the weather forecast as often as meteorologists — or, even more so. Here, expert restaurateurs weigh in on the challenges of outdoor dining.

New England is one of the most unpredictable weather regions in the country. In fact, the running joke there is, “If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute.” New Englanders typically put up with a bone-chilling winter and crave al fresco dining when the warm weather hits (and by warm, we mean 40 degrees in May).

Lee operates with a glass-half-full attitude. “At Grafton Group, we choose to look at weather optimistically; an overcast and stormy day can quickly turn into a mild pleasant evening,” says Lee. “Our guests love to dine al fresco, so we are very aggressive in keeping our patios available, and we are quick to re-open them when weather permits. When possible, we give our guests overhead shelter on our patios so when inclement weather occurs, it gives the service team time to move guests to alternate indoor tables.”

The type of shelter each restaurant can offer depends on the patio setup, says Lee. “At certain locations, we use umbrellas, and in others, we have additional shelter thanks to the structure of the surrounding buildings.” For example, the neighboring buildings at Russell House Tavern “happen to be angled in a way that creates a natural covering over the patio,” says Lee. Each of his restaurant’s patios are also equipped with heaters, “which are a great help and very beneficial to us, especially in shoulder seasons.”

Guests tend to eat a bit lighter on the patios, says Lee, “so we end up serving more salads and lighter wine. We also see that guests on the patios have quicker turn times, so they generally like to eat light and then continue on with their day.” Before it begins to snow again in a few months.

On the left coast, this Los Angeles restaurant, housed in a decades-old bungalow, has a breezy indoor/outdoor vibe and a casual “lazy French” menu as well as a natural wine program. A wrap-around patio is sheltered by trees and hedges, and an “eclectic soundtrack of old, vinyl records,” also help to cancel noise from busy Virgil Avenue beyond the hedges.

And while the temperatures aren’t nearly as extreme as in New England, the biggest challenges of running a patio at this Cali spot is also “the weather”, says Paloma Rabinov, co-owner and general manager.

“We provide blankets and heaters during the colder weather and umbrellas and shade sails for sun protection,” says Rabinov. “When it rains, we move all furniture from the patio into storage.”

Popular patio dishes include mussels, brandade dip, and a chicken sandwich, which, Rabinov says, “always sell no matter where a customer sits.”

This contemporary Italian trattoria in Charlotte, North Carolina, has dealt with snowstorms, windstorms, and even a pesky resident who lives above the restaurant and when smoking drops ashes onto Vivace’s patio, resulting in holes in the patio umbrellas.

“The biggest challenge of running our patio is predicting the weather and how guests will respond to it,” says general manager Josh Grogan. “We constantly follow several live weather apps and try to make the best call we can.”

Vivace has heaters and fans on the upstairs covered patio but not downstairs on the larger patio, says Grogan.

And, of course, fickle weather makes staffing a challenge. “It really all depends on reservations and our expectations for the shift,” says Grogan. “Rarely do we advise people not to come to work but if the weather is unexpectedly impacting business, we will sometimes cut shifts short.”

A big seller in the summer is the strawberry mojito, says Grogan, adding, “Food-wise, we see an increase in sales for pizzas and meat and cheese boards, and other fare that is light and easy to share.” [Read more…]

This feature is part of a regular series called “How I Got Promoted,” spotlighting the stories of how top hospitality professionals took their careers to the next level. Today we hear from John Winterman of Bâtard, a managing partner at the renowned French restaurant in Manhattan.

The first inclination that I wanted to work in this business was when I was waiting tables in college. I loved the hours of the restaurant business. I enjoyed the camaraderie and being able to learn about food and wine. I moved to Colorado to work for a great couple in Breckenridge that had a solid restaurant in town, and that’s when I started thinking about making this a real career. But I didn’t want to be a career waiter in a ski town. If I wanted to do this, I would do it at the highest level possible: I decided I would apply to work at Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago.

I showed up at the back door of Charlie Trotter’s and asked for an interview. I had done my research about the restaurant and that showed. I was honest about how I was totally unprepared and said that I didn’t care what they paid me. I just wanted to get my foot in the door. I got a job as a food runner, and I quickly learned a few things: First, there are a lot of people working at these fine dining spots who are competitive, and if you want to get ahead, you really do have to work a little harder, show up a little earlier, and know a little more. There were ups and downs to the job, but I learned quickly. The next lesson was learning that no job was beneath me. I always tell people: if doing dishes is beneath you, then moving up in the restaurant is beneath you. You have to be able to understand all aspects of jobs in a restaurant.

Because I was willing to work that much harder, someone from the restaurant asked if I wanted to learn to bartend, and I jumped at the opportunity. That job soon morphed into helping the Maître d’ and working the front door, and then eventually, I became a dining room manager.

I stayed at Trotter’s until I moved to San Francisco in 2001 — a lot of the people I had worked with at Trotter’s were moving on to other projects, and I felt like I should, too. I had become friendly with Gary Danko through a friend I had worked with in Chicago, and so instead of sending out fifty resumes, I called up Gary and he said, “Let’s figure out a start date.” Personal references help! It’s a small industry, and the people you know will help open doors for you. When I was at Charlie Trotter’s, I tried to be a friend to everybody. Like there was this guy who worked there for a year and didn’t talk much — that turned out to be Grant Achatz. You can’t move through these positions and alienate people because when you have a staff in their mid-twenties, you don’t know where all of them will end up. Those connections and treating everyone with respect are what got me ahead.

At Gary Danko, I was hired as captain, and then I was quickly promoted to floor Maître d’. It was because I had really taken the lead on our cheese program — I was doing the ordering, I was the one managing the cheeses we had on the carts. So because I was already doing the cheese, it was easy for them to make the decision to promote me to floor Maître d’. People are always waiting for opportunities to knock, and when one comes knocking, they say they are waiting for something else. You have to be willing to make a move and take a chance when an opportunity presents itself. That’s what I did.

In this new position, I made it a point to make myself stand out. Whenever there were high-profile guests like Bill Clinton at the restaurant, I would say, “Put them in my station!” And when we did events with chefs and there was the opportunity to go out with them afterward, I would always say yes. Tired as I was, I knew that spending quality time with people like Gordon Ramsay and Ferran Adrià was really valuable. I can’t emphasize enough how many people work hard but don’t necessarily go anywhere — what matters is creating that personal touch with people. [Read more…]

Over the course of several months, we’ve been following the opening of Public Greens, Indianapolis restaurateur Martha Hoover’s second location of her hit healthy café. We have spoken with Hoover as she navigates every part of the opening process of a restaurant, from picking a location to marketing. Today, we chat with HR director Kim Lewandowski and director of operations Jeanna Chandler about how they go about hiring staff in a competitive recruiting environment.

When we started planning for staffing for Public Greens, our first step was coming up with a strategic plan to decide on what our staffing needs were — this is determined by factors like size, scope, and layout of the restaurant. We looked internally for candidates first — to see if we could give people more responsibility. We’re always trying to promote from within.

Once we exhausted those internal promotions, we started the plans for job fairs — these are basically just two days when we hold open job interviews. This planning typically happens four to six weeks out because we want to have enough time to allow employees to give two weeks’ notice and for us to train them, but you don’t want to hire too far in advance or your posting becomes white noise.

We worked with a career site called TalentReach to do recruitment — it pushes new positions out through Indeed, Monster, and Glass Door, which reach a pretty wide audience. We also posted on Craigslist, our website, and social media.

Regarding attracting new people, yes, the restaurant industry here is competitive in terms of staffing, but we are fortunate that Martha has created such a loyal following and strong branding that speaks for itself. We also have other factors that we showcase in those postings in order to differentiate ourselves from the competitors — we offer medical, vision, and dental benefits, as well as having a 401K available to every employee whether they are part time or full time — which is pretty incredible in this industry. We also pay above average.

Once the applications for Public Greens started coming in, we reached out and let people know of the dates for our upcoming job fairs. At this point, we didn’t employ any kind of filter in terms of only inviting the top candidates because a lot of our positions don’t necessarily require a ton of experience.

The job fairs typically take place in the location of the restaurant in order to build excitement for that space, though with Public Greens, that wasn’t possible because we are still in construction. So we did the fair at the food court nearby so people could still get a feel for the area.

Our job fairs typically involve the operations team, the HR director, and managers. One of us was responsible for greeting and doing pre-screening — this first round is short and basic. We have all been in the industry long enough to know if someone could be a fit with our culture within the first five or ten minutes of meeting them: Do they have the personality, the experience, the availability? Then the second round, which is with managers, is about diving into the specifics of their experience and why they are interested in Public Greens. The third round is about making sure they have the ability and skill set to perform the job needed. We really think it’s important for people to interview with at least two different members of the staff, as we’re not just looking to have employees for thirty-day stints. We hope that people will stay with us for years.

For Public Greens, our interview process was slightly different than with our other restaurants for both the front of house and back of house. Because Public Greens is not a full-service restaurant, we were not hiring traditional servers, bussers, and hosts. We were hiring what we call front of house “team members” — so we weren’t necessarily looking for tenured servers because they have preconceived expectations and habits going to the table. We were more looking for people who were familiar with what Public Greens represented and how it tied into the Patachou Foundation. We wanted people who had the drive to work hard and be a part of something that is doing good for the community. It was more of a philosophical approach.

It was similar for back of house. Because of the cafeteria-style presentation of Public Greens, we were looking for knife skills and the ability to execute consistently. Can you follow recipes and directions? Public Greens doesn’t have a sauté station or a fry station, and cooks are not creating new menu items. We wanted people who could really wear multiple hats on any given day.

The national unemployment rate is low right now, and it’s even lower in Indianapolis. That was a real challenge that made our eligible pool of applicants even smaller. The other big challenge is finding people who really embody the magic of what we do — which is the kind of stuff you can’t really teach. People have to really buy into what we do. A candidate with twenty years in the restaurant business who doesn’t know or care about our company would probably be a better fit for a corporate-driven environment. The problem is, there aren’t too many candidates who meet our standards. It takes that already small pool of applicants and makes it even smaller. [Read more…]

We’re pleased to introduce a business intelligence suite for GuestCenter, our flagship restaurant management product. The new suite gives restaurants the tools and insights they need to seat more guests, better understand their diners’ booking habits and preferences, and personalize hospitality to help turn first-time diners into regulars.

“Our goal is to give restaurants the insights they need to make well-informed decisions affecting their business,” Prasad Gune, OpenTable SVP of Product. “The business intelligence suite offers at-a-glance dashboards showing both past performance and trend analysis which helps restaurants manage their operations, adjust their staffing schedules, and tailor their marketing efforts — all in real time”.

The business intelligence suite provides powerful insights and recommendations to help restaurants grow and thrive with:

Today, OpenTable is excited to announce an integration with Instagram’s actions product. People come to Instagram to visually discover products and services, with over 200 million Instagrammers visiting a business profile each day. Following this discovery, Instagrammers are often inspired to take action, which OpenTable integration will now make a seamless experience.

Scott Jampol, SVP of Marketing at OpenTable, says, “We’re excited that this new integration allows our restaurant partners to tap into Instagram’s vibrant community and connect with the diners who are most likely to be their future guests.”

Starting today, the feature is available for select US restaurants and will expand to all eligible restaurants over the next few weeks. [Read more…]